A third dose of Pfizer vaccine would "probably" be needed

People who have received the Pfizer vaccine will "probably" need a third dose within six months to a year, then probably an injection each year, said the boss of the American pharmaceutical giant.

 "A plausible hypothesis is that a third dose will probably be necessary, between six months and twelve months, and from there there will be a vaccination again each year, but all this must be confirmed," said Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, in statements released Thursday by CNBC. "And on the other hand, variants will play a key role," he added. "It is extremely important to minimize the number of people vulnerable to the virus," said Bourla.

Earlier today, the director of the anti-Covid cell of the Biden administration also assured that Americans should expect to receive a vaccine booster in order to protect them against circulating variants of the coronavirus.

"We don't know everything at this point"

"We do not know everything at this stage," admitted Dr. David Kessler, during a hearing before US parliamentarians. "We are studying the duration of the antibody response," he said. "It seems strong but it is experiencing a certain decline and the variants are a challenge." "For logistical reasons, and only for logistical reasons, I think we should consider that there may be a recall," Kessler said.

The Pfizer / BioNTech alliance had already announced in February to study the effects of a third dose of its vaccine against variants in a clinical study. Administered in two doses, this vaccine uses, like Moderna's, innovative messenger RNA technology, which had never before been used in real life. At this stage, these two vaccines are the best performing with an efficacy of 95% for that of Pfizer / BioNTech and 94.1% for Moderna against Covid-19, according to clinical studies.

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